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A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 

A T A L 

By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 



/ 

.6 



THE PHILOSOPHER PRESS 
AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEN PINE TREE 
WAUSAU WISCONSI 
JANUARY MDCCC 


o 


t 



/ 5 3 37 



/ 


I 


Of this edition of A Lodging for the 
Night, by Robert Louis Stevenson, six 
hundred copies were printed on Dickinson 
handmade paper and of them this is 
number 





A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


T was late in November, 
1456. The snow fell 
over Paris with rigor- 
ous, relentless persist- 
ence; sometimes the 
sally and scattered it in 
flying vortices; sometimes there was 
a lull, and flake after flake descended 
out of the black night air, silent, 
circuitous, interminable. To poor 
people, looking up under moist 
eyebrows, it seemed a wonder where 



wind made a 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


it all came from. Master Francis 
Villon had propounded an alternative 
that afternoon, at a tavern window: 
was it only Pag-an Jupiter plucking’ 
geese upon Olympus? or were the 
holy angels moulting? He was only 
a poor Master of Arts, he went on ; 
and as the question somewhat touched 
upon divinity, he durst not venture 
to conclude. A silly old priest from 
Montargis, who was among the com- 
pany, treated the young rascal to a 
bottle of wine in honour of thejest 
and grimaces with which it was 
accompanied, and swore on his own 
white beard that he had been just 
such another irreverent dog when he 
was Villon’s age. 

The air was raw and pointed, 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 3 


but not far below freezing; and the 
flakes were large, damp, and adhesive. 
The whole city was sheeted up. 
An army might have marched from 
end to end and not a footfall given the 
alarm. If there were any belated 
birds in heaven, they saw the island 
like a large white patch, and the 
bridges like slim white spars, on the 
black ground of the river. High up 
overhead the snow settled among the 
tracery of the cathedral towers. 
Many a niche was drifted full ; many 
a statue wore a long white bonnet 
on its grotesque or sainted head. 
The gargoyles had been transformed 
into great false noses, drooping 
towards the point. The crockets 
were like upright pillows swollen 


4 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


on one side. In the intervals of the 
'wind, there was a dull sound of 
dripping* about the precincts of the 
church. 




HE cemetery of St. John 
had taken its own share 
of the snow. All the g-raves 
were decently covered; tall 
white housetops stood around in grave 
array; worthy burghers were long 
ago in bed, be-nightcapped like their 
domiciles; there was no light in all the 
neighbourhood but a little peep from 
a lamp that hung swinging in the 
church choir, and tossed the shadows 
to and fro in time to its oscillations. 
The clock was hard on ten when the 
patrol went by with halberds and a 
lantern, beating their hands; and 




6 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


they saw nothing suspicious about 
the cemetery of St. John. 

Yet there was a small house, 
backed up against the cemetery 
wall, which was still awake, and 
awake to evil purpose, in that snoring 
district. There was not much to 
betray it from without; only a stream 
of warm vapour from the chimney- 
top, a patch where the snow^ melted 
on the roof, and a few half-obliterated 
footprints at the door. But within, 
behind the shuttered windows. 
Master Francis Villon the poet, and 
some of the thievish crew with whom 
he consorted, were keeping the night 
alive and passing round the bottle. 

A GREAT pile of living embers 
diffused a strong and ruddy glow 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 7 


from the arched chimney. Before 
this straddled Dom Nicolas, the 
Picardy monk, with his skirts picked 
up and his fat leg’s bared to the com- 
fortable warmth. His dilated shadow 
cut the room in half; and the firelight 
only escaped on either side of his 
broad person, and in a little pool 
between his outspread feet. His face 
had the beery, bruised appearance 
of the continual drinker’s; it was 
covered with a network of congested 
veins, purple in ordinary circum- 
stances, but now pale violet, for even 
with his back to the fire the cold 
pinched him on the other side. His 
cowl had half fallen back, and made 
a strange excrescence on either side 
of his bull neck. So be straddled, 


8 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


grumbling-, and cut the room in half 
with the shadow of his portly frame. 

On the rig-ht Villon and Guy 
Tabary were huddled together over 
a scrap of parchment ; Villon making a 
ballade which he was to call the 
Ballade of Roast Fish, and Tabary 
spluttering admiration at his shoulder. 
The poet was a rag of a man, dark, 
little, and lean, with hollow cheeks 
and thin black locks. He carried 
his four-and-twenty years with 
feverish animation. Greed had made 
folds about his eyes, evil smiles had 
puckered his mouth. The wolf and 
pig struggled together in his face. 
It was an eloquent, sharp, ugly, 
earthly contenance. His hands were 
small and prehensile, with fingers 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 9 


knotted like a cord; and they were 
continually flickering in front of 
him in violent and expressive 
pantomime. As for Tabary, a broad, 
complacent, admiring imbecility 
breathed from his squash nose and 
slobbering lips : he had become a 
thief, just as he might have become 
the most decent of burgesses, by 
the imperious chance that rules the 
lives of human geese and human 
donkeys. 

At the monk’s other hand, 
Montigny and Thevenin Pensete 
played a game of chance. About 
the first their clung some flavour of 
good birth and training, as about a 
fallen angel; something long, lithe, and 
courtly in the person; something 


10 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


aquiline and darkling in the face. 
Thevenin, poor soul, was in great 
feather: he had done a good stroke 
of knavery that afternoon in the 
Faubourg St. Jacques, and all night 
he had been gaining from Montigny. 
A flat smile illuminated his face; his 
bald head shone rosily in a garland 
of red curls; his little protuberant 
stomach shook with silent chucklings 
as he swept in his gains. 

“Doubles or quits?” said 
Thevenin. 

Montigny nodded grimly. 

'‘'‘Some may prefer to dine in 
statCy'^ wrote Villon, On bread and 
cheese on silver -plate. Or^ or — help 
me out, Guido!” 

Tabary giggle^. 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 11 


Or far shy on a golden dish^'*'^ 
scribbled the poet. 

The wind was freshening* with- 
out; it drove the snow before it, and 
sometimes raised its voice in a 
victorious whoop, and made sepulchral 
g-rumblingfs in the chimney. The 
cold was growing- sharper as the 
night went on. Villon, protuding his 
lips, imitated the gust with something 
between a whistle and a groan. It 
was an eerie, uncomfortable talent 
of the poet’s, much detested by 
the Picardy monk. 

“Can’t you hear it rattle in the 
gibbet?” said Villon. “They are 
all dancing the devil’s jig on nothing, 
up there. You may dance, my 
gallants, you ’ll be none the warmer I 


12 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


Whew I what a gust I Down went 
somebody just now I A medlar the 
fewer on the three-legged medlar-tree I 
— I say, Dom Nicolas, it’ll be cold 
to-night on the St. Denis Road?” 
he asked. 

Dom Nicolas winked both his 
big eyes, and seemed to choke upon 
his Adam’s apple. Montfaucon, the 
great grisly Paris gibbet, stood hard 
by the St. Denis Road, and the 
pleasantry touched him on the raw. As 
for Tabary, he laughed immoderately 
over the medlars; he had never heard 
anything more light-hearted; and he 
held his sides and crowed. Villon 
fetched him a fillip on the nose, which 
turned his mirth into an attack of 
coughing. 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 13 


“Oh, stop that row,” said 
Villon, “and think of ryhmes to 
‘fish.’” 

“Doubles or quits, ’’said Montigny 
doggedly, 

“With all my heart,” quoth 
Thevenin. 

“Is there any more in that 
bottle?” asked the monk. 

“Open another,” said Villon. 
“How do you ever hope to fill 
that big hogshead, your body, with 
little things like bottles? And how do 
you expect to get to heaven? How 
many angels, do you fancy, can be 
spared to carry up a single monk 
from Picardy? Or do you think 
yourself another Elias — and they’ll 
send the coach for you?” 


14 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


‘ ‘ Hominihus imfossibile^ ’ ’ replied 
the monk as he filled his glass. 

Tabary was in ecstasies. 

Villon filliped his nose again. 

“ Laugh at my jokes, if you 
like,” he said. 

“It was very good,” objected 
Tabary. 

Villon made aface at him. “Think 
of rhymes to ‘fish,’” he said. “What 
have you to do with Latin? You’ll 
wish you knew none of it at the 
great assizes, when the devil calls 
for Guido Tabary, clericus — the devil 
with the hump-back and red-hot 
finger-nails. Talking of the devil,” he 
added in a whisper, “look at 
Montigny?” 



LL three peered covertly 
at the gamester. He did 
not seem to be enjoying 
his luck. His mouth was 
a little to a side; one nostril nearly 
shut, and the other much inflated. The 
black dog was on his back, as people 
say in terrifying nursery metaphor; 
and he breathed hard under the 
gruesome burden. 

“He looks as if he could knife 
him,” whispered Tabary, with round 
eyes. 

The monk shuddered, and turned 
his face and spread his open hands 





16 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


to the red embers. It was the cold 
that thus affected Dom Nicolas, and 
not any excess of moral sensibility. 

“Come now,” said Villon — “about 
this ballade. How does it run so 
far?” And beating- time with his 
hand, he read it aloud to Tabary. 

They were interrupted at the 
fourth rhyme by a brief and fatal 
movement among- the g-amesters. The 
round was completed, and Thevenin 
was just opening his mouth to claim 
another victory, when Montigny 
leaped up, swift as an adder, and 
stabbed him to the heart. The blow 
took effect before he had time to 
utter a cry, before he had time to 
move. A tremor or two convulsed 
his fame; his hands opened and shut, 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 17 


his heels rattled on the floor ; then his 
head rolled backward over one shoulder 
with the eyes wide open ; and Thevenin 
Pensete’s spirit had returned to 
Him who made it. 

Everyone sprang* to his feet; 
but the business was over in two 
twos. The four living* fellows looked 
at each other in rather a g*hastly 
fashion; the dead man contemplating* 
a corner of the roof with a singular 
and ugly leer. 

“My God!” said Tabary; and he 
began to pray in Latin. 

Villon broke out into hysterical 
laughter. He came a step forward 
and ducked a ridiculous bow at 
Thevenin, and laughed still louder. 
Then he sat down suddenly, all of a 


18 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


heap, upon a stool, and continued 
laughing bitterly as though he would 
shake himself to pieces. 

Montigny recovered his compos- 
ure first. 

“Let’s see what he has about 
him,” he remarked, and he picked the 
dead man’s pockets with a practiced 
hand, and divided the money into four 
equal portions on the table. “There’s 
for you,” he said. 

The monk received his share 
with a deep sigh, and a single 
stealthy glance at the dead 
Thevenin, who was beginning to 
sink into himself and topple 
sideways off the chair. 

“We’re all in for it,” cried 
Villon, swallowing his mirth. “It’s 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 19 


a hang-ing- job for every man jack 
of us that’s here — not to speak of 
those who aren’t.” He made a 
shocking- g-esture in the air with his 
raised right hand, and put out his 
tongue and threw his head on one 
side, so as to counterfeit the 
appearance of one who has been 
hanged. Then he pocketed his share 
of the spoil, and executed a shuffle 
with his feet as if to restore the 
circulation. 

Tabary was the last to help 
himself ; he made a dash at the 
money, and retired to the other 
end of the apartment. 

Montigny stuck Thevenin upright 
in the chair, and drew out the dagger, 
which was followed by a jet of blood. 


20 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


“You fellows had better be 
moving-,’^ he said, as he wiped the 
blade on his victim’s doublet. 

“I think we had,” returned 
Villon, with a gulp. “Damn his 
fat head I” he broke out. “It 
sticks in my throat like phlegm. 
What right has a man to have red 
hair when he is dead?” And he 
fell all of a heap again upon the 
stool, and fairly covered his face 
with his hands. 

Montigny and Dom Nicolas 
laughed aloud, even Tabary feebly 
chiming in. 

“Cry baby,” said the monk. 

“I always said he was a 
woman,” added Montigny, with a 
sneer. “Sit up, can’t you?” he 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 21 


went on, giving another shake to 
the murdered body. “Tread out 
that fire, Nick I ” 

But Nick was better employed; he 
was quietly taking Villon’s purse, as 
the poet sat, limp and trembling, on 
the stool where he had been making 
a ballade not three minutes before. 
Montigny and Tabary dumbly 
demanded a share of the booty, which 
the monk silently promised as he 
passed the little bag into the bosom of 
his gown. In many ways an artistic 
nature unfits a man for practical 
existence. 

No sooner had the theft been 
accomplished than Villon shook 
himself, jumped to his feet, and began 
helping to scatter and extinguish the 


22 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


embers. Meanwhile Montigny opened 
the door and cautiously peered into 
thestreet. The coast was clear ; there 
was no meddlesome patrol in sight. 
Still it was judged wiser to slip out 
severally; and as Villon was himself 
in a hurry to escape from the 
neighborhood of the dead Thevenin, 
and the rest were in a still greater 
hurry to get rid of him before he 
should discover the loss of his 
money, he was the first by general 
consent to issue forth into the 
street. 



HE wind had triumphed 
and swept all the clouds 
from heaven. Only a few 
vapours, as thin as moon- 
lig-ht, fleeted rapidly across the 
stars. It was bitter cold; and by a 
common optical effect, things seemed 
almost more definite than in the 
broadest daylight. The sleeping city 
was absolutely still; a company of 
white hoods, a field full of little 
alps, below the twinklingstars. Villon 
cursed his fortune. Would it were 
still snowing! Now, wherever he 
went, he left an indelible trail behind 



24 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


him on the g-littering- streets ; wherever 
he went he was still tethered to the 
house by the cemetery of St. 
John; wherever he went he must 
weave, with his own plodding- feet, the 
rope that bound him to the crime and 
would bind him to the g-allows. The 
leer of the dead man came back to him 
with a new significance. He snapped 
his fingers as if to pluck up his 
own spirits, and choosing a street 
at random, stepped boldly forward in 
the snow. 

Two things preoccupied him as 
he went: the aspect of the gallows 
at Montfaucon in this bright, windy 
phase of the night’s existence, for 
one ; and for another, the look of the 
dead man with his bald head and 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 25 


g^arland of red curls. Both struck 
cold upon his heart, and he kept 
quickening his pace as if he could 
escape from unpleasant thoughts 
by mere fleetness of foot. Sometimes 
he looked back over his shoulder with 
a sudden nervous jerk; but he was the 
only moving thing in the white 
streets, except when the wind swooped 
round a corner and threw up the 
snow, which was beginning to freeze, in 
spouts of glittering dust. 

Suddenly he saw, a long way 
before him, a black clump and a 
couple of lanterns. The clump was 
in moticTn, and the lanterns swung 
as though carried by men walking. It 
was a patrol. And though it was 
merely crossing his line of march he 


26 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


judged it wiser to get out of eyeshot 
as speedily as he could. He was not 
in the humour to be challenged, and he 
was conscious of making a very 
conspicuous mark upon the snow. Just 
on his left hand there stood a great 
hotel, with some turrets and a large 
porch before the door; it was 
half-ruinous, he remembered, and had 
long stood empty; and so he made 
three steps of it, and jumped into the 
shelter of the porch. It was 
pretty dark inside, after the glimmer 
of the snowy streets, and he was 
groping forward with outspread 
hands, when he stumbled over some 
substance which offered an indescrib- 
able mixture of resistances, hard and 
soft, firm and loose. His heart gave 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 27 


a leap, and he sprang two steps back 
and stared dreadfully at the obstacle. 
Then he gave a little laugh of relief. It 
was only a woman, and she dead. He 
knelt beside her to make sure upon 
this latter point. She was freezing 
cold, and rigid like a stick. A little 
ragged finery fluttered in the wind 
about her hair, and her cheeks had 
been heavily rouged that same 
afternoon. Her pockets were quite 
empty ; butinherstocking, underneath 
the garter, Villon found two of the 
small coins that went by the name of 
whites. It was little enough; but it 
was always something; and the poet 
was moved with a deep sense of 
pathos that she should have died 
before she had spent her money. 


28 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


That seemed to him a dark and 
pitiable mystery ; and he looked from 
the coins in his hand to the dead 
woman, and back again to the 
coins, shaking his head over the riddle 
of man’s life. Henry V. of England, 
dying at Vincennes just after he had 
conquered France, and this poor jade 
cut off by a cold draught in a great 
man’s doorway, before she had time 
to spend her couple of whites — it 
seemed a cruel way to carry on the 
world. Two whites would have taken 
such a little while to squander; and 
yet it would have been one more good 
taste in the mouth, one more smack of 
the lips, before the devil got the soul, 
and the body was left to birds and 
vermin. He would like to use all his 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 29 


tallow before the light was blown out 
and the lantern broken. 





HILE these thoughts 
were passing through his 
mind, he was feeling, half 
mechanically, for his 
purse. Suddenly his heart stopped 
beating; a feeling of cold scales 
passed up the back of his legs, and a 
cold blow seemed to fall upon his 
scalp. He stood petrified for a 
moment; then he felt again with one 
feverish movement; and then his loss 
burst upon him, and he was covered 
at once with perspiration. To 
spendthrifts money is so living and 
actual — it is such a thin veil between 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 31 


them and their pleasures! There is 
only one limit to their fortune — that of 
time; and a spendthrift with only 
a few crowns is the Emperor of 
Rome until they are spent. For 
such a person to lose his money 
is to suffer the most shocking^ 
reverse, and fall from heaven to 
hell, from all to nothing, in a 
breath. And all the more if he 
has put his head in the halter for 
it; if he may be hang-ed to-morrow 
for that same purse, so dearly 
earned, so foolishly departed I Villon 
stood and cursed; he threw the two 
whites into the street; he shook his 
fist at heaven; he stamped, and was 
not horrified to find himself trampling* 
the poor corpse. Then he began 


32 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


rapidly to retrace his steps towards 
the house beside the cemetery. He 
had forg-otten all fear of the patrol, 
which was long- g-one by at any rate, and 
had no idea but that of his lost 
purse. It was in vain that he looked 
rig-ht and left upon the snow: nothing 
was to be seen. He had not dropped 
it in the streets. Had it fallen in the 
house? He would have liked dearly to 
go in and see; but the idea of the 
grisly occupant unmanned him. And 
he saw besides, as he drew near, that 
their efforts to put out the fire had 
been unsuccessful; on the contrary, it 
had broken into a blaze, and a changeful 
light played in the chinks of door and 
window, and revived his terror for the 
authorities and Paris gibbet. 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 33 


He returned to the hotel with the 
porch, and groped about upon the 
snow for the money he had thrown 
away in his childish passion. But he 
could only find one white; the other 
had probably struck sideways and 
sunk deeply in. With a single white 
in his pocket, all his projects for a 
rousing night in some wild tavern 
vanished utterly away. And it was 
not only pleasure that fled laughing 
from his grasp; positive discomfort, 
positive pain attacked him as he 
stood ruefully before the porch. His 
perspiration had dried upon him; and 
although the wind had now fallen, a 
binding frost was setting in stronger 
with every hour, and he felt benumbed 
and sick at heart. What was to be 


34 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


done? Late as was the hour, improba- 
ble as was success, he would try the 
house of his adopted father, the 
chaplain of St. Benoit. 

He ran there all the way, and 
knocked timidly. There was no 
answer. He knocked again and again, 
taking heart with every stroke; and 
at last steps were heard approach- 
ing from within. A barred wicket 
fell open in the iron-studded door, 
and emitted a gush of yellow light. 

“Hold up your face to the 
wicket,’^ said the chaplain from 
within. 

“It’s only me,” whimpered Villon. 

“Oh, it’s only you, is it?” 
returned the chaplain; and he cursed 
him with foul unpriestly oaths for 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 35 


disturbing- him at such an hour, and 
bade him be off to bell, where he came 
from. 

“My hands are blue to the 
wrist,” pleaded Villon; “my feet 
are dead and full of twinges; my 
nose aches with the sharp air; the 
cold lies at my heart. I may be 
dead before morning. Only this 
once, father, and before God, I will 
never ask again I ” 

“You should have come earlier,” 
said the ecclesiastic cooly. “Young 
men require a lesson nowand then.” 
He shut the wicket and retired 
deliberately into the interior of the 
house. 

Villon was beside himself; he 
beat upon the door with his hands 


36 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


and feet, and shouted hoarsely after 
the chaplain. 

“Wormy old fox I” he cried. “If 
I had my hand under your twist, 
I would send you flying* headlong into 
the bottomless pit.” 

A DOOR shut in the interior, 
faintly audible to the poet down 
long passages. He passed his hand 
over his mouth with an oath. And 
then the humour of the situation 
struck him, and he laughed and looked 
lightly up to heaven, where the stars 
seemed to be winking over his dis- 
comfiture. 

What was to be done? It looked 
very like a night in the frosty 
streets. The idea of the dead woman 
popped into his imagination, and 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 37 


g-ave him a hearty fright; what 
had happened to her in the early 
night might very well happen to 
him before morning. And he so 
young! and with such immense 
possibilities of disorderly amusement 
before him! He felt quite pathetic 
over the notion of his own fate, as if 
it had been some one else’s, and 
made a little imaginative vignette of 
the scene in the morning when they 
should find his body. 

He passed all his chances under 
review, turning the white between his 
thumb and forefinger. Unfortunately 
he was on bad terms with some old 
friends who would once have taken 
pity on him in such a plight. He had 
lampooned them in verses; he had 


38 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


beaten and cheated them; and yet 
now, when he was in so close a 
pinch, he thought there was at least 
one who might perhaps relent. It 
was a chance. It was worth trying at 
least, and he would go and see. 

On the way, two little incidents 
happened to him which coloured his 
musings in a very different manner. 
For, first, he fell in with the track 
of a patrol, and walked in it for some 
hundred yards, although it lay out of 
his direction. And this spirited him 
up; at least he had confused his 
trail; for he was still possessed with 
the idea of people tracking him all 
about Parisover the snow, and collaring 
him next morning before he was 
awake. The other matter affected 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 39 


him quite differently. He passed 
a street corner, where, not so long- 
before, a woman and her child had 
been devoured by wolves. This was 
just the kind of weather, he reflected, 
when wolves mig-ht take it into their 
heads to enter Paris ag-ain; and 
a lone man in these deserted streets 
would run the chance of something- 
worse than a mere scare. He stopped 
and looked upon the place with an 
unpleasant interest — it was a centre 
where several lanes intersected each 
other ; and he looked down them 
all, one after another, and held 
his breath to listen, lest he should 
detect some galloping- black things on 
the snow or hear the sound of howling 
between him and the river. He 


40 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


remembered his mother telling- him 
the story and pointing- out the spot, 
while he was yet a child. His mother I 
If he only knew where she lived, he 
mig-ht make sure at least of shelter. He 
determined he would inquire upon the 
morrow; nay, he would go and 
see her too, poor old girll So 
thinking, he arrived at his destination 
— his last hope for the night 





]HE house was quite dark, 
like its neighbors; and yet 
after a few taps, he heard a 
movement overhead, a door 
opening, and a cautious voice asking 
who was there. The poet named 
himself in a loud whisper, and 
waited, not without some trepidation, 
the result. Nor had he to waitlong. A 
window was suddenly opened, and a 
pailful of slops splashed down upon 
the doorstep. Villon had not been 
unprepared for something of the 
sort, and had put himself as much 
in shelter as the nature of the porch 




42 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


admitted; but for all that, he was 
deplorably drenched below the waist. 
His hose began to freeze almost at 
once. Death from cold and exposure 
stared him in the face ; he remembered 
he was of phthisical tendency, and 
began coughing tentatively. But the 
gravity of the danger steadied his 
nerves. He stopped a few hundred 
yards from the door where he had 
been so rudely used, and reflected 
with his finger to his nose. He could 
only see one way of getting a lodging, 
and that was to take it. He had 
noticed a house not far away, which 
looked as if it might be easily broken 
into, and thither he betook himself 
promptly, entertaining himself on the 
way with the idea of a room still 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 43 


hot, with a table still loaded with 
the remains of supper, where he 
mig-ht pass the rest of the black 
hours and whence he should issue, on 
the morrow, with an armful of valuble 
plate. He even considered on what 
viands and what wines he should 
prefer; and as he was calling- the 
roll of his favorite dainties, roast 
fish presented itself to his mind with 
an odd mixture of amusement and 
horror. 

“I shall never finish that 
ballade,’’ he thoug-ht to himself; and 
then, with another shudder at the 
recollection, “Oh, dam his fat 
head I” he repeated fervently, and 
spat upon the snow. 

The house in question looked 


44 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


dark at first sig*ht ; but as Villon made 
a preliminary inspection in search of 
the handiest point of attack, a little 
twinkle of light caught his eye 
from behind a curtained window. 

“The devil 1 ” he thought. “Peo- 
ple awake 1 Some student or some 
saint, confound the crewl Can’t they 
get drunk and lie in bed snoring like 
their neighbors 1 What’s the good of 
curfew, and poor devils of bell-ringers 
jumping at a rope’s end in bell- 
towers? What’s the use of day, if 
people sit up all night? The gripes 
to them I” He grinned as he saw 
where his logic was leading him. 
“Every man to his business, after 
all,” added he, “and if they’re 
awake, by the Lord, I may come 


A DODGING FOR THE NIGHT 45 


by a supper honestly for once, and 
cheat the devil.’* 



E went boldly to the door 
and knocked with an 
assu'red hand. On both 
previous occasions, he had 
knocked timidly and with some dread 
of attracting- notice; but now when he 
had just discarded the thought of a 
burglarious entry, knocking at a door 
seemed a mighty simple and innocent 
proceeding. The sound of his blows 
echoed through the house with 
thin, phantasmal reverberations, as 
though it were quite empty; but these 
had scarcely died away before a 
measured tread drew near, a couple 




A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 47 


of bolts were withdrawn, and one 
wing- was opened broadly, as thoug-h 
no guile or fear of guile were known 
to those within. A tall figure of a 
man, muscular and spare, but a little 
bent, confronted Villon. The head 
was massive in bulk, but finely 
sculptured; the nose blunt at the 
bottom, but refining upward to where 
it joined a pair of strong and honest 
eyebrows; the mouth and eyes 
surrounded with delicate markings, 
and the whole face based upon a thick 
white beard, boldly and squarely 
trimmed. Seen as it was by the 
light of a flickering hand-lamp, it 
looked perhaps nobler than it had 
a right to do; but it was a 
fine face, honourable rather than 


48 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


intellig'ent, strong-, simple, and 
righteous. 

“You knock late, sir,” said the old 
man in resonant, courteous tones. 

Villon cringed, and brought up 
many servile words of apology; at a 
crisis of this sort, the beggar was 
uppermost in him, and the man of 
genius hid his head with confusion. 

“You are cold,” repeated the old 
man, “and hungry? Well, step 
in.” And he ordered him into the 
house with a noble enough gesture. 

“Some great seigneur,” thought 
Villon, as his host, setting down the 
lamp on the flagged pavement of the 
entry, shot the bolts once more into 
their places. 

“You will pardon me if I go in 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 49 


front,’’ he said, when this was 
done ; and he preceded the poet upstairs 
into a larg-e apartment, warmed with 
a pan of charcoal and lit by a great 
lamp hanging from the roof. It was 
very bare of furniture: only some 
gold plate on a sideboard; some 
folios; and a stand of armour between 
the windows. Some smart tapestry 
hung upon the walls, representing the 
crucifixion of our Lord in one 
piece, and in another a scene of 
shepherds and shepherdesses by a 
running stream. Over the chimney 
was a shield of arms. 

“Will you seat yourself,” said 
! the old man, “and forgive me 
I if I leave you? I am alone in 
I my house to-night, and if you 


so A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


are to eat I must forage for you 
myself.” 

No sooner was his host gone than 
Villon leaped from the chair on which 
he had just seated himself, and began 
examining the room, with the stealth 
and passion of a cat. He weighed the 
gold flagons in his hand, opened all 
the folios, and investigated the arms 
upon the shield, and the stuff with 
which the seats were lined. He raised 
the window curtains, and saw that the 
windows were set with rich stained 
glass in figures, so far as he could 
see, of material import. Then he 
stood in the middle of the room, drew 
a long breath, and retaining it with 
puffed cheeks, looked round and 
round him, turning on his heels, as if 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 51 


to impress every feature of the 
apartment on his memory. 

“Seven pieces of plate,” he 
said. “If there had been ten, I would 
have risked it. A fine house, and a 
fine old master, so help me all the 
saints! ” 

And just then, hearing the old 
man’s tread returning along the 
corridor, he stole back to his chair, and 
began humbly toasting his wet legs 
before the charcoal pan. 

His entertainer had a plate of 
meat in one hand and a jug of wine in 
the other. He sat down the plate upon 
the table, motioning Villon to draw in 
his chair, and going to the sideboard, 
brought back two goblets, which he 
filled. 


52 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


“I drink your better fortune,” he 
said, g-ravely touching Villon’s cup 
with his own. 

“To our better acquaintance,” 
said the poet, growing bold. A mere 
man of the people would have been 
awed by the courtesy of the old 
seigneur, but Villon was hardened in 
that matter; he had made mirth for 
great lords before now, and found 
them as black rascals as himself. And 
so he devoted himself to the viands 
with a ravenous gusto, while the old 
man, leaning backward, watched him 
with steady, curious eyes. 

“ You have blood on your 
shoulder, my man,” he said, 

Montigny must have laid his 
wet right hand upon him as he 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT S3 


left the house. He cursed Montigny 
in his heart. 

“It was none of my shedding,” he 
stammered. 

“I had not supposed so,” returned 
his host quietly. “A brawl?” 

“Well, something of that sort,” 
Villon admitted with a quaver. 

“Perhaps a fellow murdered?” 

“Oh, no, not murdered,” said the 
poet, more and more confused. “It 
was all fair play — murdered by 
accident. I had no hand in it, God 
strike me dead I” he added fervently. 

“One rogue the fewer, I dare 
say,” observed the master of the 
house. 

“You may dare to say that,” 
agreed Villon, infinitely relieved. “As 


54 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


big a rogue as there is between here 
and Jerusalem. He turned up hia 
toes like a lamb. But it was a nasty 
thing to look at. I dare say you’ve 
seen dead men in your time, my 
lord?” he added, glancing at the 
armor. 

“Many,” said the old man. “I 
have followed the wars, as you 
imagine.” 

Villon laid down his knife and 
fork, which he had just taken up again. 

“Were any of them bald?” he 
asked. 

“Oh yes, and with hair as white 
as mine.” 

“I don’t think I should mind the 
white so much,” said Villon. “His 
was red.” And he had a return of 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 55 


his shuddering" and tendency to 
laug-hter, which he drowned with a 
great draught of wine. “ I’m a little 
put out when I think of it,” he went 
on. “I knew him — damn him! And 
then the cold gives a man fancies — or 
the fancies give a man cold, I don’t 
know which.” 

“Have you any money?” asked 
the old man. 

“I have one white,” returned the 
poet, laughing. “I got it out of a dead 
jade’s stocking in a porch. She was 
as dead as Caesar, poor wench, and 
as cold as a church, with bits of ribbon 
sticking in her hair. This is a hard 
worJ,d in winter for wolves and 
wenches and poor rogues like me.” 

“I,” said the old man, “am 


56 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


Enguerrand de la Feuillee, seigneur de 
Brisetout, bailly du Patatrac. Who 
and what may you be?” 

Villon rose and made a suitable 
reverence. “I am called Francis 
Villon,” he said, “a poor Master of 
Arts of this university. I know some 
Latin, and a deal of vice. I can make 
chansons, ballades, lais, virelais, and 
roundels, and I am very fond of 
wine. I was born in a garret, and I 
shall not improbably die upon the 
gallows. I may add, my lord, that 
from this night forward I am your 
lordship’s very obsequious servant to 
command.” 

“No servant of mine,” said the 
knight, “my guest for this evening, 
and no more.” 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 57 


“A very grateful guest,” said 
Villon politely, and he drank in dumb 
show to his entertainer. 

“You are shrewd,” began the old 
man, tapping his forehead, “very 
shrewd; you have learning; you are a 
clerk; and yet you take a small piece 
of money off a dead woman in the 
street. Is it not a kind of theft?” 

“It is a kind of theft much 
practiced in the wars, my lord.” 

“The wars are the field of 
honour,” returned the old man 
proudly. “There a man plays his life 
upon the cast; he fights in the name 
of his lord the king, his Lord God, and 
all their lordships the holy saints and 
angels.” 

“Put it,” said Villon, “that I were 


58 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


really a thief, should I not play my life 
also, and ag-ainst heavier odds?” 

“For g-ain but not for honour.” 

“Gain?” repeated Villon with a 
shrug-. “Gain! The poor fellow 
wants supper, and takes it. So does 
the soldier in a campaig-n. Why, what 
are all these requisitions we hear so 
much about? If they are not g'ain to 
those who take them, they are 
loss enoug-h to the others. The 
men-at-arms drink by a good fire, while 
the burgher bites his nails to buy 
them wine and wood. I have seen a 
good many ploughmen swinging on 
trees about the country; ay, I have 
seen thirty on one elm, and a very 
poor figure they made; and when I 
asked someone how all these came to 


■ir‘ 

vV 

) 

; A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 59 

be hanged, I was told it was because 
they could not scrape together enough 
crowns, to satisfy the men-at-arms.” 

“These things are a necessity of 
war, which the low-born must endure 
with constancy. It is true that some 
captains drive overhard; there are 
spirits in every rank not easily moved 
by pity; and indeed many follow arms 
who are no better than brigands.” 




OU see,’’ said the poet, ‘'you 
cannot separate the soldier 
from the brig-and; and what 
is a thief but an isolated 
brigand with circumspect manners? I 
steal a couple of mutton chops, without 
so much as disturbing people’s 
sleep; the farmer grumbles a bit, but 
sups none the less wholesomely on 
what remains. You come up blowing 
gloriously on a trumpet, take away the 
whole sheep, and beat the farmer 
pitifully into the bargain. I have no 
trumpet; I am only Tom, Dick or 
Harry ; I am a rogue and a dog, and 



A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 61 


hang-ing-’s too g-ood for me — with all 
my heart; but just ask the farmer 
which of us he prefers, just find out 
which of us he lies awake to curse on 
cold nig-hts.’’ 

“Look at us two,” said his 
lordship. “I am old, strong-, and 
honoured. If I were turned from my 
house to-morrow, hundreds would be 
proud to shelter me. Poor people 
would go out and pass the night in the 
streets with their children, if I merely 
hinted that I wished to be alone. And 
I find you up, wandering homeless, and 
picking farthings off dead women by 
the wayside! I fear no man and 
nothing I I have seen you tremble and 
lose countenance at a word. I wait 
God’s summons contentedly in my 


62 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


own house, or, if it please the king- to 
call me out again, upon the field of 
battle. You look for the gallows ; a 
rough, swift death, without hope or 
honour. Is there no difference 
between these two?” 

“As far as to the moon,” Villon 
acquiesced. “But if I had been born 
lord of Brisetout, and you had been 
the poor scholar Francis, would the 
difference have been any the less? 
Should not I have been warming my 
knees at this charcoal pan, and would 
not you have been groping for farth- 
ings in the snow? Should not I have 
been the soldier, and you the thief?” 

“A thief?” cried the old man. “I 
a thief I If you understand your 
words, you would repent them.” 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 63 


Villon turned out his hands with 
a g-esture of inimitable impudence. “If 
your lordship had done me the honour 
to follow my arg-umenti” he said. 

“I do you too much honour in 
submitting* to your presence/’ said 
the knig-ht. “Learn to curb your 
tong-ue when you speak with old and 
honourable men, or some one hastier 
than I may reprove you in a sharper 
fashion.” And he rose and paced the 
lower end of the apartment, strugg-ling* 
with ang*er and antipathy. Villon 
surreptitiously refilled his cup. and 
settled himself more comfortably in 
the chair, crossing* his knees and 
leaning his head upon one hand and 
the elbow against the back of the 
chair. He was now replete and 


64 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


warm ; and he was in nowise f rig-htened 
for his host, having* g*aug*ed him as 
justly as was possible between two 
such different characters. The night 
was far spent, and in a very 
comfortable fashion after all; and he 
felt morally certain of a safe departure 
on the morrow. 

“Tell me one thing,” said the old 
man pausing in his walk. “Are you 
really a thief?” 

“I claim the sacred rights of 
hospitality,” returned the poet. “My 
lord, I am.” 

“You are very young,” the knight 
continued. 

“I should never have been so 
old,” replied Villon, showing his 
fingers, “If I had not helped myself 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 65 


with these ten talents. They have 
been my nursing- mothers and my 
nursing fathers.” 

“You may still repent and 
change.” 

“I repent daily,” said the poet. 
“There are few people more given to 
repentance than poor Francis. As 
for change, let somebody change my 
circumstances. A man must continue 
to eat, if it were only that he may 
continue to repent.” 

“The change must begin in the 
heart,” returned the old man solemnly. 

“My dear lord,” answered Villon, 
“ do you really fancy that I steal for 
pleasure? I hate stealing, like any 
other piece of work or of danger. My 
teeth chatter when I see a gallows. But 


66 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 

I must eat, I must drink, I must mix 
in society of some sort. What the 
devil 1 Man is not a solitary animal 
— Cui Deus fceminam tradit. Make me 
king-’s pantler — make me abbot of 
St. Denis; make me bailly of the 
Patatrac; and then I shall be changed 
indeed. But as long as you leave me 
the poor scholar Francis Villon, 
without a farthing, why, of course, I 
remain the same.” 

“The grace of God is all- 
powerful.” 

“I should be a heretic to question 
it,” said Francis. “It has made you 
lord of Brisetout and bailly of the 
Patatrac; it has given me nothing but 
the quick wits under my hat and 
these ten toes upon my hands. May 


iLifC. 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 67 


I help myself to wine? I thank you 
respectfully. By God’s grace you 
have a very superior vintag'e.” 

The lord of Brisetout walked to 
and fro with his hands behind his 
back. Perhaps he was not yet quite 
settled in his mind about the parallel 
between thieves and soldiers; perhaps 
Villon had interested him by some 
cross-thread of sympathy; perhaps 
his wits were simply muddled by so 
much unfamiliar reasoning-; but what- 
ever the cause, he somehow yearned 
to convert the young man to a better 
way of thinking, and could not make 
up his mind to drive him forth again 
into the street. 

“There is something more than I 
can understand in this,” he said at 


68 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


leng-th. “Your mouth is full of 
subtleties, and the devil has led you 
very far astray; but the devil is only 
a very weak spirit before God’s 
truth, and all his subtleties vanish at 
a word of true honour, like darkness 
at morning. Listen to me once 
more. I learned long ago that a 
gentleman should live chivalrously 
and lovingly to God, and the king, and 
his lady; and though I have seen 
many strange things done, I have still 
striven to command my ways upon that 
rule. It is not only written in all 
noble histories, but in every man’s 
heart, if he will take care to read. You 
speak of food and wine, and I know 
very well that hunger is a difidcult 
trial to endure; but you do not speak 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 69 


of other wants; you say nothing* of 
honour, of faith to God and other 
men, of courtesy, of love without 
reproach. It may he that I am not 
very wise — and yet I think I am — but 
you seem to me like one who has lost 
his way and made a g*reat error in 
life. You are attending* to the little 
wants, and you have totally forgotten 
the great and only real ones, like a 
man who should be doctoring toothache 
on the Judgment Day. F or such things 
as honour and love and faith are not 
only nobler than food and drink, but 
indeed I think we desire them more, 
and suffer more sharply for their 
absence, I speak to you as I think 
you will most easily understand 
me. Are you not, while careful to fill 


70 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


your belly, disreg-arding- another 
appetite in your heart, which spoils 
the pleasure of your life and keeps 
you continually wretched? ’’ 

Villon was sensibly nettledunder 
all this sermonizing-. “You think I 
have no sense of honour!” he 
cried. “I’m poor enough, God knows 1 
It’s hard to see rich people with their 
gloves, and you blowing in your 
hands. An empty belly is a bitter 
thing, although you speak so lightly 
of it. If you had had as many as 
I, perhaps you would change your 
tune. Any way I’m a thief — make the 
most of that — but I’m not a devil from 
hell, God strike me dead. I would 
have you to know I’ve an honour of my 
own, as good as yours, though I don’t 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 71 


prate about it all day long-, as if it was 
a God’s miracle to have any. It seems 
quite natural to me; I keep it in its 
box till it’s wanted. Why now, look 
you here, how long have I been in this 
room with you? Did you not tell me 
you were alone in the house? Look 
at your gold plate! You’re strong, if 
you like, but you’re old and 
unarmed, and I have my knife. What 
did I want but a jerk of the elbow and 
here would have been you with the 
cold steel in your bowels, and there 
would have been me, linking in the 
streets, with an armful of golden 
cups! Did you suppose I hadn’t wit 
enough to see that? And I scorned 
the action. There are your damned 
goblets, as safe as in a church; there 


72 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


are you, with your heart ticking* as 
good as new; and here am I, ready to 
go out again as poor as I came in, with 
my one white that you threw in my 
teeth I And you think I have no sense 
of honour — God strike me deadl” 

The old man stretched out his 
right arm. ‘Twill tell you what you 
are,” he said. “You are a rogue, my 
man, an impudent and black-hearted 
rogue and vagabond. I have passed 
an hour with you. Oh I believe me, I 
feel myself disgraced I And you have 
eaten and drunk at my table. But 
now I am sick at your presence; the 
day has come, and the night-bird 
should be off to his roost. Will you 
go before, or after?” 

“Which you please,” returned the 


A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 73 


poet, rising-. “I believe you to be 
strictly honourable.’’ He thoughtfully 
emptied his cup. “I wish I could add 
you were intelligent,” he went 
on, knocking on his head with his 
knuckles. “Age I age I the brains 
stiff and rheumatic.” 

The old man preceded him from 
a point of self-respect; Villon 
followed, whistling, with his thumbs 
in his girdle. 

“ God pity you,” said the lord of 
Brisetout at the door. 

‘ ‘ Good-bye, papa, ’ ’ returned Villon 
with a yawn. “Many thanks for the 
cold mutton.” 

The door closed behind him. The 
dawn was breaking over the white 
roofs. A chill, uncomfortable morning 


74 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 


ushered in the day. Villon stood and 
heartily stretched himself in the 
middle of the road. 

“Avery dull old gentleman,” he 
thought. “ I wonder what his goblets 
may be worth.” 



And so ends the tale of A L#odging Fok 1?he 
Night by Robert Louis Stevenson, made 
into this book by Van Vechten & Ellis, at 
The Philosopher Press, which is in 
Wausau, Wisconsin, at the Sign of The 
Green Pine T ree ; put through the press 
by Helen Bruneau Van Vechten; finished this 
twenty-third day of January, M D CCCC. 
Sold by Van Vechten & Ellis at The 
Philosopher Press. 






A LODGING FORTHE 
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